


Fool's Paradise

by LadyRhiyana



Series: Season 8 reaction ficlets [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Established Relationship, F/M, Fools in Love, season 8 episode 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 12:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: There’s little enough pleasure in this world. You hold on to it while you can.**In Winterfell, far away from the reality of the world, Jaime and Brienne spend long days and nights in a fool's paradise. It can't last. (But it's sweet while it does.)





	Fool's Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out I still have *feelings* about this episode. And so I wrote this, so that I can face whatever happens in episode 5 with equanimity. 
> 
> It's not made clear how long Jaime and Brienne get to spend together. I'm assuming weeks?

The first time – wine-emboldened – was good. Very good. It was better than any shadowed dream she’d ever conjured in the darkness of her lonely bed, because it was real, not an insubstantial fantasy. They kissed and fumbled and laughed and eventually managed to fit themselves together, and they fell asleep tangled up in each other, sweet and foolish smiles on their faces. 

** 

Day 1

**

In the morning, she rolled over to find him still beside her, watching her. 

The second time was slower, lazier. He kissed his way down her throat and mock-growled against her ticklish belly until she writhed and giggled, until she finally tugged at his hair and told him to stop being a fool. He laughed, put her astride him and taught her to take her own pleasure.

** 

She went about her day. 

If she felt like her body was no longer her own, if she could not help smiling a little and blushing whenever she thought of him and what they had done – well, she was no different to every other maid who had ever been in love before her.

** 

He came to her chamber again that night. She let him in, met his eyes bravely – starting to believe, now, that he was not making mock of her. Not in this. 

She felt a little stretched and sore, but it was a good ache. A sweet pleasure-pain that she revelled in as he stroked and caressed her, as he finally entered her and they rocked slowly together, trading kisses until they reached their slow climax. 

Afterwards, after she had slept a little and woke, drowsy and languid still, she asked if they could do it again. 

“Hmmm,” he drawled, still half-asleep. “Give me some time to recover. I’m an old man, you know.”

She laughed, stroking his beard, enjoying the soft, raspy feel of it. She liked the lines of suffering and experience fanning out from his green eyes, and the new streaks of grey in his golden hair. 

She gave him some time to recover. They did it again, and a third time in the early hours of the morning. 

**

Day 2

**

Even if they could have kept it a secret, Brienne was not ashamed of him. 

In King – Lord – Jon’s absence, Brienne was Lady Sansa’s military commander; she had authority over the armies of the North and their various captains. If some of the Northern lords and soldiers thought less of her because she had given herself to a man – to a Lannister, no less – she quickly disabused them of the notion. 

Some of the women smiled indulgently and wished her well. Unlike the men who thought her lessened, the women now seemed to think her one of their own.

_We remember what it was like, my lady,_ they said. _There’s little enough pleasure in this world. You hold on to it while you can._

An old, toothless wise woman, her face seamed with wrinkles, patted her hand and pressed a packet of moon tea into her palm. 

Lady Sansa only said that Brienne should be careful. 

**

Day 3

**

He pulled her into a shadowed corner of the keep and kissed and nuzzled her neck, whispered filthy nothings in her ear and talked her into something that made her blush and stammer and eventually sigh with pleasure. 

He only grinned at her, insufferably smug, 

** 

Day 4

** 

On the fourth day she resumed her training with Pod. 

He watched on from the sidelines, calling out laughing encouragement. Pod grinned bashfully, some part of him still a squire in a Lannister crimson cloak; when Jaime rose and grasped a practice sword to walk him through a particular combination, his eyes shone with pride and determination. 

Brienne had never known Jaime in his prime as a swordsman, and probably never would. What little she had seen of him in that fight by the river had been remarkable – strength, speed, skill and grace combined.

Even with his left hand, she could see the ruined shadow of his skill. 

** 

“I sometimes wish we’d met before that day in Riverrun,” Brienne whispered that night. 

He laughed softly. “You would have hated me,” he said. 

She hummed thoughtfully, remembering the man she had first met. Even after a year as Robb Stark’s prisoner, he’d still been a proud, reckless golden lion – _hear me roar!_ – superbly confident in himself and his worth. 

“Probably,” she acknowledged. “But I would have liked to have fought you at your best, just once.” 

He shifted restlessly beside her, lifting his right arm, still uncomfortable with it, even now. 

“I would have beaten you easily,” he said, his tone deliberately light. 

She sat up indignantly. “You would not!” she said. 

They narrowed their eyes at each other. 

He pounced. She rolled and evaded him, and then tackled him back to the bed. He was cunning, though, and tricksy; they growled and mock-wrestled, first one of them and then the other on top, giggling like breathless children until he finally pinned her face down beneath him. 

“Do you yield?” he demanded breathlessly, rolling his hips against her as she twisted beneath him. 

“No!” she giggled delightedly. “Get off me –” 

He closed his teeth over her shoulder and bit down, gently. 

“Oh!” she breathed, her entire body going limp beneath him. “Oh, that was –” 

He made an enquiring sound. 

She turned her head to look up at him, her eyes dark and hungry. “Do that again,” she breathed. 

And so he did.

** 

Day 5

** 

There was a tiny purpling bruise on her throat. It stung when she prodded it, a sweet sting that never failed to make her blush.

Pod coughed and averted his eyes when he saw it. The washerwomen cackled like bawdy hens and the soldiers could not quite meet her gaze. 

** 

Day 6

** 

The armies of the dead and the white walkers may have been defeated, but there were still threats to face, both human and animal. And so Brienne, Jaime, Pod and a troop of her best men rode out to patrol some of the lands around Winterfell. 

They came across some bandits in the Wolfswood. 

Pod fought well. Jaime killed one man with a neat, skillful thrust and was inordinately pleased. 

The men accepted his presence without question. When she and Jaime laid their bedrolls out side by side, when they shared the same furs and held each other close through the night, there was no scorn or contempt from the men the next morning. 

Acceptance had never been so sweet. 

** 

Day 7

** 

A Northman who had lost his brother and both his sons fighting with the Young Wolf spat at her feet and called her Kingslayer’s Whore. 

Jaime smashed his teeth in with his golden hand. 

** 

“Why did you do that?” she hissed angrily. “What could you possibly hope to achieve?”

“I thought that I could teach him some respect,” he snapped back, utterly unapologetic. 

“Words are wind, Jaime,” she said. “Some men will never see me as anything more than an ugly freak. I’ve learned to accept that.” 

His mouth twisted angrily. “That sounds like your shriveled-up cunt of a septa again,” he said. “I told you – forget everything she ever told you.” 

“She wasn’t wrong, Jaime,” she protested weakly. 

“Brienne,” he sighed, his voice fond and exasperated. “Cersei is the most beautiful woman in Westeros. Believe me when I tell you beauty isn’t everything.”

** 

Day 8

** 

Some of the younger boys, orphans with no families, took to following Jaime around, hoping be his squires. He laughed and put them to work, sending them off on errands to keep them out from underfoot. 

Sometimes he walked them through basic sword drills. She smiled to see their small, chubby faces so intent on his instructions, their feet clumsy as they tried to follow his movements. 

Sometimes he told them stories of the great Kingsguard knights of old: Ser Gerold Hightower the Old Bull; Ser Lewyn Martell, the swift, cunning Prince of Dorne; Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, the best and most noble knight of his generation.

The sight of him with the children made her heart ache with wistful longing. But she still drank moon tea every morning. Now was not the time to bring a child into the world. 

Not yet. There would be time enough when the war was over.

** 

Day 9

** 

She woke to hear him dreaming. 

He had nightmares every so often. So did she. So did everyone who had fought or huddled together during the Long Night. 

But Jaime’s nightmares also ranged from dreams of Cersei and his dead children, to the Mad King’s burning victims mixed with the screams of his men on the Blackwater Rush, to the memory of Fat Zollo’s arakh shining in the bright blue sky, the moment before it severed his sword hand. 

She held him tightly against her, murmuring soft, soothing words in his ear, until his shaking stopped and he no longer wept in his sleep. 

** 

“What was it this time?” she asked, much later. 

Sometimes he would tell her. Sometimes not. 

There was a long, long pause, until finally he said: “Cersei.” No more, no less. 

** 

She stayed awake, long after he had gone back to sleep, slowly obsessing over that one word, over and over again. 

_Cersei._

**

Day 10

** 

Her moon blood came. 

_You should know,_ he had said, at the very beginning: _Cersei is with child._

** 

She had thought, when she told him her moon blood had come, that he would avoid her bed for the next five days. Most men did, she understood. 

He only looked puzzled. “Do you not still –?” he asked. “Cersei still liked –”

He had the sense to stop himself. 

Sometimes Brienne could not help but feel that there was a ghost in their bed. Some of the things he did, the things he liked or assumed that she would like, were unspoken evidence of his long history with Cersei. 

He had never denied the affair with his sister, not even when Lady Catelyn threw it in his face all those years ago. He had always admitted to it with fierce, unapologetic pride. 

And now he said that he loved Brienne, still with that same defiant lack of apology. It was simply the way he was.

He had done terrible things for his sister because he loved her. Brienne suspected that if she was not careful, he would do terrible things for her. 

“Can you just – hold me?” she asked, feeling sick and shaky inside. 

He looked relieved, and she crawled into his embrace and wrapped him around her, breathing in his warm, familiar scent, feeling the strength and weight of his body in her arms. 

**

Days 11-14

** 

She did not want him to fuck her while her moon blood was still upon her. But he held her close every night, and as the days passed he convinced her that there were other things they could do. 

Some of them were familiar. Others were things she had not dreamed of, things that made her blush and squirm and stare at him with wide eyes. 

“Take pleasure where you can, Brienne,” he said, holding her against him afterwards. “There’s no shame in it.”

** 

Day 15

** 

That day, the clouds parted for a stray moment to let the weak winter sunlight shine through. She looked up at just the right time to see him illuminated, his grey-gold hair brightened; he threw his head back and laughed at something Pod had said, smiling, and the force of his tattered beauty and charisma struck her like a lightning bolt. 

She stared at him, mouth open and eyes wide, feeling sheer physical lust curling deep within her belly. 

She loved Jaime. She loved him for his virtues and his flaws, for his honour and his failings, for his strengths and his weaknesses and because when he looked at her he saw not a freakish ugly woman but an equal. 

But now – now she saw him, and she saw him as he must have been when he was young, and golden, and beautiful, and she _wanted_. 

It was selfish, and shallow, but in this moment she didn’t care. 

She strolled over to him as casually as she could, drew him away on some pretext or other, and dragged him back to their chambers. As soon as the door was barred behind them she tore off their clothes, pushed him down on the bed, held him him down with her greater strength and settled her hips over his cock, grinning as his eyes glazed over. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, unabashed, “if I use you for my own pleasure.” 

He blinked up at her, a flush darkening his cheeks. His hand settled on her hip, and he flexed it, making a low, approving sound. 

“Yes,” he said in a strangled voice, staring up at her in awe. “Yes, I’d – I’d like that very much.”

Brienne looked down at him, at the glorious greying lion in her bed, and took what she wanted. 

** 

Day 16

** 

Garbled rumours and whispers began to flow up from the South. Lady Sansa began to look for ravens bearing proper intelligence, not just gossip. 

For the first time since the Dragon Queen and King Jon had left Winterfell, the outside world began to intrude on their enchanted idyll. 

** 

Day 17

** 

Some unconscious part of her knew that something precious and fragile – their fool’s paradise, their interlude out of time – was drawing to an end. The future was rushing towards them, and soon they would have to face all the questions that had been put on hold while they came together for their very survival. 

They had survived. Now came the afterwards, and the questions would no longer but put off. 

Their encounter that night was – strange. Urgent, and almost desperate. 

He held her almost too tightly, afterwards, and she could feel him shaking. 

** 

Day 18

**

She woke before him, and spent a long, long time staring at him as he slept. 

He was so beautiful. Ser Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock, of the Kingsguard. Knighted by Ser Arthur Dayne himself, in the old, golden days of the Targaryen kings. 

Queen Cersei’s life-long lover and consort. The father of her child. 

_Did you really think you could hold him?_ Her demons whispered. 

** 

When he woke, there was a shadow in his eyes as he smiled at her. 

**

Day 19

** 

She remembered Lady Catelyn, and a woman’s courage. 

**

Day 20

**

The raven came from the South, bearing terrible, inevitable tidings. 

When they lay together, he kissed her with desperate hunger, his eyes pressed shut almost in anguish, and he held her as though it was the last time, as though he was trying to imprint her on his memory – as though he was preparing to leave. 

When she woke to find him gone, she knew. 

He could no more stay in the North and sit out this fight than he could have stayed true to his vows and let King’s Landing burn. 

Still, she could not – quite – let go of their fool’s paradise. She had to try, though she knew it was useless. 

Why he said such terrible things to her, she would never know. Perhaps to dissuade her from following him. Perhaps to convince himself. 

But when he rode out of the gates of Winterfell and into the night, leaving her standing alone, unprotected against the cold, she finally knew what the women of Winterfell had meant. 

_There’s little enough pleasure in this world. You hold on to it while you can._


End file.
